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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22799032">Ever after never came</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz'>Elisexyz</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Once Upon a Time (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s03e11 Going Home, F/M, Introspection, Relationship status: complicated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 18:42:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,694</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22799032</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Neal! There’s — Jack Sparrow here for you.”</i><br/>
Basically a "Neal goes to New York with Emma and Henry" AU.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Baelfire | Neal Cassidy/Emma Swan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>77</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>84</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Part I</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedTailedHawkens/gifts">RedTailedHawkens</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Here it is! I hope you will enjoy it &lt;3<br/>
<br/>
In this AU, Neal left Storybrooke with Emma and Henry, so the three of them think that they've been living together for more than a decade. This is <i>technically</i> a rewrite of the second half of the season, but it won't be a complete one: I am not going to be focusing much on the plot (as you might have guessed by the number of chapters), it will mostly be about Emma trying to deal with her messy relationship with Neal after this whole thing.<br/>
I will be using the notes to try and clarify plot points that aren't explained in the story, but if something is confusing feel free to ask, I will be happy to clarify (...unless I actually <i>didn't</i> think of something, which is entirely possible LOL).<br/>
Since Neal was part of the whole plot in the Enchanted Forest, some things will obviously be a bit of a stretch conveniently used for the Zelena plot to still work, I hope you will forgive me LOL.<br/>
<br/>
Title from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qukOp7BdI48">here</a>.<br/>
Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The guy that she opens the door to is definitely not there to bring them their Indian food – unless they’ve got some kind of pirate themed campaign that she didn’t know about going on, that is.</p><p>Emma frowns, shifting uncomfortably as she realizes that she’s definitely underdressed to be receiving visitors: it’s Saturday night, she just spent the last few days chasing some bastard around and Neal would rather dote on her all night than waste any time cooking, so they went for a movie night with take-out, and she’s currently wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top, no shoes on.</p><p>It doesn’t help that the man in front of her looks like a nutcase and he’s staring at her in a way that makes her want to punch him in the nose, because better safe than sorry.</p><p>“Can I help you?” she asks, her tone probably less polite than it should have been.</p><p>(Truth be told, she’s also a little pissed that he isn’t her food.)</p><p>“I — yes, I — I’m looking for Neal,” he eventually manages to say, coming up with a toothy grin. “He lives here, doesn’t he?”</p><p>That he does, but Emma is pretty tempted to just say ‘You can’t murder my husband tonight, sorry’ and just shut the door on his face.</p><p>Sadly, she’s a rational adult who should behave like one, so instead she twists her torso a little towards the inside, keeping a solid grip on the door and her eyes on the stranger, and she calls out: “Neal! There’s — Jack Sparrow here for you.”</p><p>The man’s confused face tells her that he either lives under a rock and he didn’t get the reference, or he’s somehow not aware that he’s dressed like a pirate.</p><p>Neal appears in record time, looking half-way between confused and amused and asking what it is that she’s talking about. At least, until he catches sight of the man at the door and his whole face falls, his cheeks going no less than two shades paler.</p><p>“What the hell are you doing here?” Neal all but growls, after the shock wears off, taking a few menacing steps forward and looking just about ready to kick the guy down the stairs.</p><p>Emma doesn’t really react, at first, frozen by the extremely unusual sight: out of the two them, Neal is definitely <em>not</em> the one with the temper. He’s patient to levels that she finds frustrating or even insulting, depending on the days, he hardly ever yells and when they fight he’s more likely to curl up on himself like a hedgehog for a week than to lash out.</p><p>He also isn’t really the type to throw hands.</p><p>And yet.</p><p>“Okay, I get that you are not happy to see me —” the man says, his tone conciliatory and his hands up in surrender – actually, there’s only one hand, Emma can’t believe that she didn’t notice that he is wearing a <em>hook</em>.</p><p>“Get the hell away from me and my family!” Neal yells in his face. She automatically grabs a hold of his arm, casting a glance to the hallway just in case Henry decides to choose this moment to join the fun.</p><p>“Just listen to me —”</p><p>“I don’t want <em>anything</em> to do with you, so either you go or I <em>make</em> you.”</p><p>Apparently, his tone is aggressive enough that the man is stunned for a moment or two. She can feel Neal tremble under her fingers, and she is really coming to regret not having her gun handy.</p><p>“Alright, I suppose I deserve that,” the man says, quietly. “Look, I’m here to help.”</p><p>Neal snorts. “Yeah, imagine <em>that</em>.”</p><p>He ignores the comment, turning to Emma, who automatically tenses. “This is about your family — they are in danger, and —”</p><p>“My family is right here,” she interrupts, her tone even. “And half of it apparently hates your guts, so I suggest that you make yourself scarce.”</p><p>The look that the man gives her is pure frustration. “<em>Swan</em>, listen to me, your parents are in big trouble, you need to remember —”</p><p>“How the hell do you know my name?” she interrupts, her brain registering the implication of stalking just about at the same time as it trips on the mention of her parents. </p><p>“I know this seems crazy, but there is a lot that you two don’t remember.” He turns to Neal. “Your memories were erased, with magic.”</p><p>Emma’s first thought is that the guy is apparently just as much of a nutcase as his outfit suggested. Neal’s reaction, though, makes her drown in worry instead: he looks like he just got punched in the gut, not like he’s listening to a bunch of nonsense.</p><p>“Okay, that’s it, get out,” she’s quick to say, pulling Neal inside so that she can try to push the door closed.</p><p>“No, no, wait —” He manages to reach out, grabbing Neal’s shirt and pulling him close enough to manage to shove a piece of paper in his hand. “Just go to this address, alright? It will prove that there is something you are missing, just — Bae, I’m not lying.”</p><p>Emma waits to sense the lie. She doesn’t.</p><p>(Still doesn’t mean that he isn’t a nutcase, though.)</p><p>Neal snorts, pushing him away, though he doesn’t let go of the piece of paper. “Yeah, that would be a first,” he comments, bitterly. “Go away.”</p><p>Emma takes that as her cue to pull Neal inside and push the door shut, even if something in her twitches at the man’s pleading face.</p><p>She’s half-expecting him to start furiously banging on the door, but when he doesn’t, she turns to Neal instead, unsure of what she will find. He clearly knew that guy, and she didn’t miss that he called him ‘Bae’, so excluding that that’s his secret lover he must be someone that he knew from <em>before</em>.</p><p>Which would explain both his aggressive reaction and the way he’s staring at the address, like his brain has stopped functioning.</p><p>“Are you alright?” she asks, gently, because first things first. She steps forward, reaching out for his bicep as a reminder that she’s near, and when he looks up to her he seems terribly lost.</p><p>“Uh, yeah, yeah —” he mutters, very unconvincingly. “I — sorry about that.”</p><p>“Who was he?” she asks, the mention of her parents flashing back in her mind. Whoever he was, he informed himself enough to know that her heritage is a sore enough spot to unsettle her. That’s — not reassuring at all.</p><p>Neal shrugs. “Just someone I knew — a long time ago. I have no idea how he found me.”</p><p>“He talked like he escaped from a psychiatric ward,” she comments, bitterly. “Should we alert the police?”</p><p>“No, no, I —” His eyes fall back on the paper, crumpled in his hand. “Maybe I should just check it out —”</p><p>“Are you out of your mind?” She doesn’t yell, but it’s a close thing. “You want to just go where the nutcase tells you to?”</p><p>“Look, if I talk to him, maybe I can find out what he wants — get him to back off.”</p><p>It’s laughable how he’s trying to make it seem like a <em>reasonable</em> solution. </p><p>“What he wants is apparently to let us know that <em>magic</em> stole our memories,” she reminds him. “He’s crazy. You are not meeting up with him, at least not alone.”</p><p>Neal snorts nervously. “Yeah, okay, if you are suggesting that you should come too —”</p><p>“Either we both go, or no one does,” she decides, crossing her arms and trying to stare him down. “At least <em>I</em> have a registered gun.”</p><p>He opens his mouth to argue, though he looks somehow fond, but he’s interrupted by the doorbell, this time hopefully announcing the arrival of their take-out.</p><p>“We can talk about it later,” he says, probably jumping on the occasion to buy himself time to build a counterargument. She doesn’t mind agreeing: no matter how he spins it, he is not going alone, even if she has to follow him around like she would a criminal.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Sleepless nights are, historically, one of their favourite occasions to get big decisions settled.</p><p>They picked Henry’s name on a night when her back was hurting so much that she had no hope whatsoever of falling asleep, so they moved to the couch, turned on their small, crappy TV and started watching a movie, Neal somehow managing not to complain about the fact that he was supposed to go to work in the morning.</p><p>He asked her to marry him while they were both sleep deprived and dealing with a screaming baby – it was probably one of the least romantic proposals in the history of proposals, in the grand scheme of things, but he took out those ridiculous plastic rings that he got her as a joke when they first decided to be partners in crime, and she was tired enough that she didn’t feel stupid about crying.</p><p>Hell, they even decided that New York was the place to go to, after their house went up in flames, with random finger pointing while trying to get some sleep in the car, by the side of some road in Maine.</p><p>So, really, of course they were going to decide to go and try to talk with the crazy pirate guy while lying in bed, neither of them anywhere close to getting some decent sleep.</p><p>She isn’t sure this is a good idea, but she could tell that there was <em>something</em> there, enough of a something that Neal wouldn’t let it go without going to that stupid address, and she wasn’t about to let him deal with it on his own.</p><p>Which is how she finds herself breaking into some apartment down Wooster Street, Neal keeping an eye out for any concerned citizens calling the cops on them.</p><p>That certainly brings back memories.</p><p>The first thing that Emma notices when they get in is that it’s dusty, which at least makes it unlikely for the owner to come there and bust them, and that a few steps are enough for her to get a very weird sense of déjà-vu. Any further observation gets delayed when Neal’s attention is caught by a bunch of mail.</p><p>When he picks it up, muttering a very heartfelt ‘what the hell’, she scoots closer to take a look, and she finds that they are addressed to — him.</p><p>Or, at least, to <em>a</em> Neal Cassidy.</p><p>“Are these supposed to be for me?” he frowns.</p><p>“You’re probably not the only Neal Cassidy in New York,” she says, evenly, though it’s hardly a coincidence that the wanna-be Jack Sparrow sent them there. Since Neal still looks very troubled, staring at the mail like he’s attempting to pierce through it, she automatically elbows him, gesturing with her head to the rest of the apartment as soon as she has his attention. “Though there <em>is</em> enough junk here for it to be your place, I must say,” she teases.</p><p>That gets an exasperated snort out of him. “Seriously? Now?” he says, because that’s one of the oldest arguments between them: if it were his choice, he would never throw away <em>anything</em>. “Come on, this place is clean.”</p><p>“Yeah, but look at how much stuff is crammed on the shelves,” she points out, gesturing to the millions of records and books and little souvenirs stashes in any available corner. Definitely Neal’s style.</p><p>It’s then that her eyes fall on the window in front of them, and she notices that there’s something hanging there.</p><p>“Is that — is that a dreamcatcher?”</p><p>She doesn’t wait for an answer, already moving forward like something is pulling her towards the window. As soon as she gets her hands on the dreamcatcher, her fingers tingle, and she gets the very distinct feeling that <em>something</em> is trying to come to the surface, like — like the sight is reminding her of a dream that won’t stop slipping from her mind, no matter how hard she tries to catch it.</p><p>She keeps staring at the dreamcatcher, and the more she looks the surer she gets that it’s <em>their</em> dreamcatcher. The same that they stole to put into their new home, the same that they moved from their bedroom to Henry’s when he had to start sleeping on his own, so that he’d have protection from the nightmares. It’s <em>identical</em>.</p><p>How —?</p><p>“This is Henry’s old camera,” Neal says, cutting through her thoughts and startling her even before she has realized what he’s saying. She has to blink to put him into focus. “It has his <em>name</em> on it,” he adds. “What the hell is going on?”</p><p>That camera, much like their dreamcatcher, is supposed to have burned down with their house.</p><p>“Come here a second,” she says, her voice a little unsteady. “Doesn’t this — isn’t this our dreamcatcher? The one we stole from that motel?” She has to ease her grip a little, she doesn’t want to break it.</p><p>As soon Neal is close enough to reach out and his fingers close around the dreamcatcher too, for a second the world seems to come to a halt, and Emma could have <em>sworn</em> that she saw it glowing.</p><p>A blink of an eye later, it stops mattering, because she remembers everything.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Part II</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Here's chapter two! Thank you all very much for the support, I hope you will enjoy this &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Emma remembers being scared, back when she was pregnant with Henry.</p>
<p>Some days, all that she could see while looking around at her life were all the things that she wouldn’t be able to offer her child, all the ways in which she was lacking, and she thought — maybe he could have a better life, with someone else. Some days, the thought of letting him go was just a little bit less terrifying than the idea of playing mother when she didn’t have any of her shit together.</p>
<p>When the day came, the only thing that she could think was that it was too late, that she couldn’t go back, that she was terrified and it <em>hurt</em> —</p>
<p>She remembers that she wasn’t alone in it. Neal held her hand the whole time, he drove her to the hospital, with every smile he reminded her that, if nothing else, their child would have a loving home and two parents who’d tear the world apart before leaving him alone.</p>
<p>When she held Henry for the first time, she couldn’t even remember what it was to be afraid.</p>
<p>Strangely enough, that’s the first thing that goes away.</p>
<p>It isn’t the memory of <em>magic</em> to tear through the curse first, to send her world crumbling down, but the pain that she felt that day, when, terrified and with no comforting presence at her bedside, she refused to look at her child in the eye as she let a couple of strangers take him away.</p>
<p>Neal wasn’t there, he left her months before.</p>
<p>She abandoned Henry.</p>
<p>Every other piece quickly follows, years of her life falling apart, loneliness and running from place to place tearing through her happiness, through the family that she thought she had managed to build.</p>
<p>(She still went to Tallahassee, she knows. She stayed for longer than in any other place, some part of her still hoping that Neal sending her that keychain was meant to be a message, that maybe he would come, and another part of her just wanting to prove that she didn’t <em>need</em> him to be happy there.)</p>
<p>(Now that she knows what it’s like to be alone in Tallahassee and to go there hand in hand with him, the striking difference is impossible to ignore.)</p>
<p>“Holy shit,” Neal breathes out, stumbling back with wide eyes and confirming that she wasn’t the only one to regain her memories.</p>
<p><em>You </em>left<em> me</em>, she wants to yell, betrayal burning in her eyes, because up until five minutes ago there were few things that she trusted more than the fact that he’d never abandon her, and now —</p>
<p><em>God, I left him</em>, her heart sobs, as she remembers Henry, showing up at her door already a ten-year-old boy that she’d never met before, as she thinks of all the things that she could have had, of all the moments that Regina planted into her head and that could have been <em>hers</em> — if she hadn’t abandoned him.</p>
<p>(If <em>Neal</em> hadn’t abandoned her first.)</p>
<p>Next to that pain, even the knowledge that her parents at least loved her, that they never meant for her to suffer as she did and that they welcomed her back into their arms as soon as they recognized her, does little to soothe her aching heart.</p>
<p>Neal has dropped on the couch, elbows on his knees and palms pressed against his mouth as he stares at the wall in front of him, and she has no idea what to say.</p>
<p>This is probably as unpleasant to him as it is to her, but she doesn’t think she can summon enough energy to string any comforting words together.</p>
<p>Fortunately, someone up there must take pity on her, because Hook choses that moment to walk in.</p>
<p>“Oh,” he lets out, stopping on his tracks as soon as he notices them. “You came.” He sounds carefully hopeful, because apparently he can’t read it on their faces that they <em>know</em>.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” she says, drily. “Hi, Hook.”</p>
<p>All the tension in his shoulders dissipates in a moment, as he sighs in relief. “Great, it worked then — to be quite honest, I had no idea what else to try to convince you.”</p>
<p>“What are you doing here?” Neal asks. “And <em>how</em> did you get here? I thought it was impossible.”</p>
<p>“Impossible, yes, unless someone cast another dark curse,” Hook points out, which is just <em>great</em>. Fantastic. Another curse.</p>
<p>“But who did?” she asks, frowning. Could it be Regina again? But <em>why</em>, weren’t they past all that?</p>
<p>Hook shrugs. “I have no idea, love. I just saw the purple smoke, thought <em>hell no</em>, and trusted my ship to get me far enough away.” He grins. “She delivered.”</p>
<p>“So — what are you doing here then?” Neal asks, seemingly confused.</p>
<p>“I figured that if there was a curse in the area your parents —” He gestures to Emma. “— would probably be involved, and that they’d likely need a Savior. So I got my hands on a bean and a tracking spell, and here I am.”</p>
<p>Neal snorts, pleasantly surprised. “Just like that?”</p>
<p>Emma has to agree that it’s strangely nice of him, to not go on with his life like nothing happened.</p>
<p>Hook shrugs. “Apparently, I’ve spent too much time pirating the seas. It became boring.”</p>
<p>Neal just keeps grinning, shaking his head in amusement, and Emma has to look away, because it’s such a familiar sight, except — except it <em>isn’t</em>, because they haven’t <em>actually</em> been together for the past decade. It was a lie.</p>
<p>“So you don’t <em>know</em> exactly how much trouble everyone is in?” Emma says, turning her attention to Hook.</p>
<p>“I’m afraid not.”</p>
<p>She takes a breath, nodding once. “Okay. I imagine getting to Storybrooke would be a good start.”</p>
<p>Though she isn’t particularly enthusiastic at the idea of diving back into magic and curses, she is even less thrilled at the thought of walking back into their home and having to play house even though she <em>knows</em> that their whole life as a family was an illusion. Storybrooke sounds like a much better alternative.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>-</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The scene is familiar: Neal is sitting right next to her, at the wheel, she has a big bag on her lap, because the Bug doesn’t have much of a trunk, and Henry is asleep in the backseat, using his father’s jacket as a pillow and with a bag under his legs.</p>
<p>The difference is that Henry isn’t the only one asleep in the backseat this time, Neal isn’t humming any song or attempting small talk, instead tensely staring at the road, and Emma wants to throw up, because she knows that even though it <em>feels</em> familiar and she could name at least five similar scenarios from their past off the top of her head, none of those memories were real.</p>
<p>She tried to argue to be the only one to go to Storybrooke.</p>
<p>They brought the dreamcatcher home with them, hopeful that if it managed to break them out of the spell maybe it’d do the same for Henry– Emma tried not to feel too much like she was just looking for an excuse to keep it –, and when that didn’t work —</p>
<p>Well, <em>she</em> is the Savior. And Henry wouldn’t have found it strange if she had just said that she had to leave for work earlier than she previously thought, it would hardly be the first time.</p>
<p>It would have made sense for Neal and Henry to stay behind, right?</p>
<p>She maintains that the answer is <em>yes</em>, but Neal insisted that she shouldn’t just walk alone in a mess that she knows nothing of, and her point kinda crumbled on itself anyway when their neighbour turned into a <em>flying monkey</em> that tried to murder her.</p>
<p>So there she is, sitting in the car with her not-husband, their child, and a pirate, on her way to save a bunch of fairy-tale characters from a curse, <em>again</em>, and barely managing to keep her own head at bay. With two sets of memories, she feels impossibly old.</p>
<p>It's only when she realizes that she has been fidgeting with her wedding ring for the whole ride that she comes to think that maybe — she should probably take that off. They are not really married. It’s — it’s weird.</p>
<p>One glance confirms that Neal still has his on. Taking hers off now would probably be too much of an asshole move.</p>
<p>“Hey, Emma,” he suddenly says, maybe feeling her eyes on him. He glances at her only for a moment, before turning back to the road. “Listen, about —”</p>
<p>She can tell by his tone where this is going – she isn’t sure if she really <em>can</em> read him that well, or if it’s just a decade of fake marriage fooling her –, and panic makes her jump out of her skin, reaching out for the radio.</p>
<p>“I want some music,” she cuts him off, maybe a little too eagerly not to be transparent.</p>
<p>He takes a look at her, presses his lips together, and just nods, turning away. Emma feels impossibly relieved.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>-</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Things in Storybrooke are definitely a lot better than she had been expecting: there are no homicidal flying monkeys that she can see, for starters, and her parents remember who she is.</p>
<p>(She didn’t realize how much she <em>dreaded</em> having to introduce herself to them until she didn’t have to.)</p>
<p>No one has forgotten their lives, apparently, just whatever happened in the last year, which means that they are still as in the dark as they were before they set foot in there. It also means that Emma, Neal and Henry don’t have to check in at <em>Granny’s</em>, which is — comforting in a way that she can’t really explain.</p>
<p>The loft is not exactly meant to be shared by that many people, so it isn’t really a surprise that, with Henry taking Emma’s old bed, she and Neal would end up sharing a folding couch.</p>
<p>It’s still awkward as hell.</p>
<p>They start arranging the blankets in tense silence, her eyes fixated on her hands even though she can <em>feel</em> that he’s staring at her, and eventually he’s the one to speak up.</p>
<p>“You know, we don’t <em>have</em> to —” He pauses, because sometimes he starts speaking without having thought it all the way through. “I can take a pillow and a blanket and sleep somewhere else,” he eventually offers, earnestly.</p>
<p>At that, she looks up to him, eyebrows up to her hairline. “And where?” she asks, sarcastically. “On the floor, like a dog?”</p>
<p>He shrugs. “You know I could sleep on rocks.” He snorts. “<em>Did</em> sleep on rocks.”</p>
<p>Emma has to say that a part of her appreciates the reminder that they are living in the <em>magical</em> reality, the one where she knows that he spent years upon years in actual <em>Neverland</em> and they didn’t see or hear from each other for a decade.</p>
<p>The rest of her wants to punch him.</p>
<p>“Don’t be stupid,” she mutters, fixing her pillow. “We’ve been sharing a bed for a year, it’s fine.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, but it’s different,” he says, quietly. “I get it if you don’t want to —”</p>
<p>“And what happens if Henry comes down and sees you sleeping on the floor?” she asks, because this is <em>stupid</em>, it’s just a bed and he is making this so much more complicated than it needs to be by trying to give her a <em>choice</em>. “Listen, just — just get in, it’s fine.”</p>
<p>“Alright,” he says, after a long pause. The knot in Emma’s stomach eases a little, something in her getting settled back into place when they slide under the covers together, like any other night.</p>
<p>This isn’t their bed, or their bedroom, but she’s sleeping on her usual side and, with the lights off and the sound of Neal breathing for company, it’s easy to pretend like Hook never showed up, if only for a moment.</p>
<p>“Maybe we should keep the rings on,” she says, quietly, before she can stop herself. “I know we are not really — I mean, Henry thinks we are. He’ll notice if we take them off.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Neal eventually answers. “He’d worry something is wrong.”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>She waits, hardly breathing.</p>
<p>“Okay,” he says. “Let’s keep them.”</p>
<p>She gets the feeling that he’s a little relieved that she asked.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>-</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>If their objective was not worrying Henry, they completely failed.</p>
<p>It was predictable, really: he’s a curious child, and he started looking at them suspiciously from the exact moment they introduced him to Hook and said that they’d be taking a small trip, accompanying her on a job.</p>
<p>“Why can’t we stay at home as usual?” he asked, looking between her and Neal as if trying to decide who would break first.</p>
<p>“It’s kind of a — long thing. Could take a while,” was Emma’s attempt at an explanation.</p>
<p>“Yeah, and Killian here’s an old friend of mine,” Neal tried to help. “So I’d, uh, I’d like to join in for this one, just for a few days. You don’t mind, do you, buddy?”</p>
<p>Ultimately, Henry seemed to decide that, though he smelled something rotten, it was worth ignoring to skip a bit of school.</p>
<p>The questions didn’t stop, much less when he started noticing how everyone in town seemed to be somehow familiar with them.</p>
<p>“You never mentioned any of these people,” he pointed out, when they explained that they’d stay at David and Mary Margaret’s place.</p>
<p>“Didn’t we?” Neal echoed, distractedly, before deliberately changing the subject to the homework that Henry was supposed to pack and that he’d better get done, because this isn’t a <em>vacation </em>— Henry’s questions quickly turned to unhappy teenage grumbling, much to Emma’s relief.</p>
<p>It’s only a couple of days in when he comes up to them, staring them down with those piercing eyes of his and asking: “Are you guys in a fight?”</p>
<p>“What?” Emma lets out, a little startled and already panicking a little at the accusation. “What, no, why?”</p>
<p>Henry crosses his arms, giving them an inspecting look. “You never kiss anymore,” he simply points out. “You always kissed before we came here, it’s — it’s <em>weird</em>, that you don’t do that anymore.”</p>
<p>Emma’s stomach shrinks on itself. She’s well aware that there have been some <em>changes</em>, because sometimes things are so normal that she starts automatically leaning into Neal’s personal space, or her fingers twitch to grab his shirt and pull him into a kiss, and her head has to put a stop to it.</p>
<p>She just somehow failed to consider that Henry would probably notice the difference too, even if they kept up appearances with the rings and by sharing a bed.</p>
<p>“Everything’s fine, buddy,” Neal intervenes, his tone comforting as he steps forward to squeeze Henry’s shoulder. “I promise, you don’t need to worry.”</p>
<p>Henry doesn’t look particularly convinced, and Emma and Neal share a look that agrees that they should probably talk things through a little more in depth sooner or later.</p>
<p>(Her preference would be <em>later</em>.)</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Part III</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Okay, I DID IT. Uff. This was — a nightmare LOL. I'm not too satisfied with how it came out, but to be fair a good chunk of the reason is probably that it was driving me crazy LOL.<br/>
ANYWAY, I’ve updated in the end! Sorry for the wait, I always think to myself that if I start posting when I have a first draft for each chapter I will be able to update regularly and then I… start rewriting things. I hope you will enjoy it!<br/>
<br/>
Also, I feel like I should put a disclaimer here: remember when I said that I wouldn’t be focusing that much on the plot in this story? Yeah, keep that in mind, because this chapter wraps up the WHOLE Zelena storyline, so as you can imagine it's not particularly detailed.<br/>
Speaking of details, if while reading you are confused by something, you might want to skip to the final notes for a second, I’ve explained a few things that Emma doesn’t know/see.<br/>
<br/>
Okay, I’m done, enjoy!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As it turns out, Gold is alive. The news is not as good as one would think, considering the state that they found him in.</p><p>Not only he remembers who he is, but he also remembers what happened during the last year. It’s too bad that, when they asked him who was behind the curse, he could only press his lips together, his face twisting in a grimace as he said: “I can’t tell you. She forbade me.”</p><p>He's trapped in a cell, with no way to get out because of the hold that the dagger has on him. The fact that the witch that cursed them back to Storybrooke also has the Dark One’s dagger is an extremely worrying piece of information that makes Emma want to hop on a plane back to New York.</p><p>Gold couldn’t give them a name, but he did remind them that ‘it’s unwise to trust your children in the care of strangers’. Emma and Neal haven’t been leaving Henry with any strange women, and they eventually took that to mean that they should beware of the midwife that has conveniently dropped in Mary Margaret’s lap.</p><p>(Emma is actually surprised at herself for not smelling the rotten from the beginning. And if she’s actually a well-meaning midwife — well, they can apologize later, it’s simply not worth the risk.)</p><p>When they tried to find out if he could give them anything to help defeat the witch, he only complimented Emma on her ‘remarkable qualities’ as a child of True Love. “Light magic is extremely powerful,” he commented, slowly. “It stands to reason that the Savior would be one of the best examples.”</p><p>That was taken to mean that Emma’s magic is somehow the key to defeating the witch, and Regina takes it upon herself to start training her to bring out her inner potential. Emma is not particularly enthusiastic, but at least it’s something to go on.</p><p>It’s unbelievably weird to walk away from all <em>that</em> and come home to a child that has no idea what is going on, having to play <em>normal</em> for him while sharing dinner with Snow White and Prince Charming.</p><p>(If there’s one thing that the last two years have taught her is that there’s no limit to <em>weird</em>.)</p><p>Neal’s head is elsewhere, she can tell.</p><p>He keeps up appearances well enough, for Henry, but as soon as the kid’s attention shifts away from him he’s back to spacing out, and it takes an unbelievable amount of restraint for Emma to wait until they are alone to say something.</p><p>Not that she is sure about <em>what</em> she is supposed to say, exactly. Especially since he keeps avoiding her eyes, and that only serves as a reminder that things are so damn <em>complicated</em>.</p><p>“Are you okay?” she eventually asks, because she can ask that, can’t she? Married or not married, he is the father of her son, and they are <em>friends</em>, or something like it, so — so if he looks like he’s carrying the world on his shoulders, she’s allowed to worry.</p><p>“Yeah, sure, great,” he only says. He doesn’t bother to make it convincing or to look up at her. Instead, he keeps moving around, gathering his clothes, folding them back into the bag, getting others out to fold them again.</p><p>He’s not really much of a cleaner, he’s probably just looking for something to do with his hands. Which is a terrible sign.</p><p>“<em>Neal</em>,” she reprimands. “Come on, talk to me.”</p><p>He lets out a breath, finally turning to face her. “What do you want me to say, Emma?” he says, his voice a little too sharp. “It sucks. My father is alive but he is a slave to a psychopathic witch, and I had to <em>leave</em> him there, alone, and apparently the one who needs to take a magic crash course to defeat said witch had to be my <em>wife</em>, I —”</p><p>He probably realizes what he said just about at the same time as she does.</p><p>For a moment, they just sit in silence, staring at each other. It feels like moving could make everything shatter, somehow. Neal’s wide eyes tell her that he’s just about terrified.</p><p>“Sorry,” he eventually says, quickly, as he looks away. “I’m sorry, it slipped, I —”</p><p>“Just —” she interrupts, shaking her head and waving her hand in dismissal. “Just leave it alone, it’s fine.” It’s not, not really. Mostly because she isn’t sure if that punch in her gut was because she hated hearing it or because she had <em>missed</em> it. “Come here and get some sleep, okay?” she adds, gently.</p><p>She can’t exactly promise that everything will look better in the morning, but sleep deprivation is hardly going to help him anyway.</p><p>Neal looks like he’s considering arguing, but eventually he closes his mouth and nods, sliding under the covers.</p><p>Since when coming to Storybrooke, they have been sleeping in neatly separated sides, barely even touching, if not by accident – Emma considered building a wall of pillows, a time or two, but that would have been stupid and childish.</p><p>As per usual, he lies on his side, back to her and almost positioning himself on the edge, muttering a ‘good night’ that is a way less warm than usual.</p><p>(If she didn’t know him, she might think that he needs some time alone.)</p><p>She isn’t sure it’s a good idea. Hell, it probably isn’t. It’s hardly even an <em>idea</em>, since she’s moving before she has truly considered what she’s doing.</p><p>She shifts closer to him, touching his back as a warning, the way she remembers doing so many times over the years, and half-expecting him to tell her to stay on her side. Instead, he says nothing, and that is as close to an invitation as she’s going to get.</p><p>Pressing herself against his back, she wraps her arm around him and slides her leg between his, relaxing into the familiarity of the position and resting her cheek against his hair. It doesn’t take long for him to grab her hand in return, a silent <em>thanks</em> that brings a bit of a smile out of her.</p><p>She only wishes that things could be this easy at the light of day too.</p><p><br/>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>-</p><p><br/>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>People can be stupid. Once you are married – or fake married – to someone for just about a decade, you are going to start thinking that you are pretty familiar with the depths of their stupidity. That you can see it coming, when they are about to do something completely idiotic.</p><p>Now, in Emma’s defence, under other circumstances she <em>might</em> have. She was a little distracted, though.</p><p><br/>
</p><p>It starts with a phone call from Leroy. Henry was supposed to meet him to go fishing, because apparently he <em>enjoys</em> it – Emma cannot understand what an hyperactive young boy would find entertaining about sitting around doing nothing on a boat, but whatever keeps him occupied –, except he didn’t show.</p><p>With a decade of fake parenting under their belt, Neal and Emma figure that it’s not time to panic just yet.</p><p>They try Henry’s phone, but it just rings. That causes a few frowns, but no horror, because that damn phone is always on silent, he might as well not have it.</p><p>Emma tries Regina, just in case they crossed paths while Henry was heading to the docs, while Neal tries Hook, because the kid seems to have taken a shine to him. The latter is the one to tell them that a flying monkey apparently showed up out of nowhere, and that he’s got a nasty concussion to show for it.</p><p>Emma, frankly, couldn’t care less about the guy’s head, not when her son has been kidnapped by an evil witch.</p><p>(<em>Now’s</em> the time to panic.)</p><p><br/>
</p><p>Gold shows up not long later.</p><p>Regina is out trying a tracking spell, while Emma, Neal and her parents are sitting on their asses trying to narrow down the witch’s possible location in the woods, which is not <em>easy</em>, given that the most that they have to go on is Gold’s prison cell.</p><p>He appears in a cloud of purple smoke, holding Henry close to his chest, and <em>not</em> in a protective way.</p><p>Emma’s first instinct is taking a step forward, because the only thing that she can see is Henry’s terrified eyes, but Gold promptly warns her that he’s been instructed to kill him should any one of them try to attack. He sounds dead serious, and it’s enough to freeze her in place.</p><p>He says that he’s there to deliver a message, for Emma. That she should go to the witch, alone, and exchange her magic for her son’s life while she is still in time.</p><p>(Right in that moment, she would have accepted any deal, without question, just to save him.)</p><p>She probably should have seen it coming, she should have reacted more quickly, but the only thing that she could think about was that her son was in <em>danger</em> and that she couldn’t make a move to help him without endangering him further, and goddammit that witch would <em>pay</em> — when Neal starts moving, she isn’t ready to pull him back.</p><p>Gold raises his hand, ready to teleport back to his mistress, Henry still secured against him, and Neal leaps forward – only then Emma notices that he had been subtly getting away from her, closer to his father, throughout the whole thing –, his fingers closing around Gold’s coat just in time.</p><p>All three of them disappear, and Emma feels the ground waver under her feet.</p><p>“Neal!” she calls out, before her brain can catch up with her mouth and prevent her from making a fool of herself. She has attempted to step forward, her arm twitching as if to reach out but her fingers only closing around thin air.</p><p>“Great, that’s just — <em>great</em>,” she mutters, worry pressing down on her chest. It feels like the world around her is getting bigger and bigger, trying to remind her that she is helpless and completely <em>lost</em> in this whole mess.</p><p>(God, does she miss New York.)</p><p>“Alright, let’s just — let’s stay calm, we’ll get to them,” David says, successfully keeping a levelled head and a quiet tone. He claps her shoulder in a reassuring gesture that fails to calm her down any.</p><p>She isn’t even sure if what pisses her off more is that Neal did something so <em>stupid</em> right under her nose, or that <em>she</em> didn’t think of it in the first place. Because right now nothing could be as terrifying as the idea that they are in danger and she is somewhere safe, out of reach.</p><p>“We need to <em>find</em> them first,” she says, rubbing her face with both hands.</p><p>“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Mary Margaret intervenes. “Gold did say that Zelena wants you to make an exchange. She has to let you know where they are for that to happen.”</p><p>“Yeah, you’re right,” Emma has to concede, but that doesn’t offer much consolation. She blows out some air, shaking her head slightly. “Let’s just hope that she doesn’t send Neal’s severed head along with the next message.”</p><p>“It’s gonna be fine,” David says, with that unwavering confidence that probably would have made her want to bash her head against a wall a year ago. As it so happens, she has had ten years of fake memories with <em>another</em> unsufferable optimist to get used to it.</p><p>(She isn’t sure if, at the moment, it helps or it makes things even worse.)</p><p>It only takes a text message to get Regina to teleport right in the middle of the room, startling all three of them even though they were expecting her.</p><p>Her face promises murder, unsurprisingly.</p><p>“What do you <em>mean</em> she has him?” she thunders, taking a menacing step forward and staring at Emma as if to accuse her of being the cause to all her problems.</p><p>“I mean exactly <em>that</em>,” Emma says, in the exact same tone, not really unhappy now to blow off some steam. “Gold showed up here, he said that she wants my magic in exchange for Henry’s life. <em>And</em> that I have to show up alone.”</p><p>Regina snorts. “Well, <em>that</em> is not going to happen,” she says, arms crossed tightly as her eyes drift away from Emma. “We are going together, we are getting Henry and we are obliterating this witch. She has crossed a line.”</p><p><br/>
</p><p>When they try another tracking spell, and this time it <em>works</em>, Emma’s mind can only see the neat line leading her to Henry – and hopefully Neal as well –, and she doesn’t even <em>think</em> of protesting any further.    </p><p><br/>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>-</p><p><br/>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>Emma met a girl in a foster home once, she thinks that her name was Mary, or maybe Amy, something like that. She had big glasses and she always carried a coin around.</p><p>She’d flip it when she was unsure about a decision, because she said that while it was flying she’d always realize that she wasn’t <em>that</em> unsure after all, that there was a result that she found herself rooting for.</p><p>It makes Emma a little uneasy to think of all the time one might spend overthinking the answer when the solution is often just so <em>easy</em>.</p><p>The memory of Mary-or-maybe-Amy pops into her head for a second as she stares at Zelena, literally holding Neal’s life in her hand, threatening to just take him away in the blink of an eye. She spent so much time holding back, trying to decide what was real and what not, whether she wanted to close that door or not — now she can only think <em>no, please, I </em>need<em> him</em>.</p><p>Henry ran to safety as soon as he saw them.</p><p>Emma’s eyes went to him for a moment, as she squeezed his arm as if to make sure that he was real, her touch following him as he walked past her, hiding behind with Regina. Emma still can’t move, she can’t even speak as Zelena offers her a deal, a heart for a handshake, her magic for Neal’s life —</p><p>“You <em>can’t</em>,” Regina hisses behind her, Henry held to her chest.</p><p><em>How can I </em>not<em>?</em> Emma thinks.</p><p>A heart for a handshake, it’s a small price to pay. They’ll find something else to defeat the evil witch, they always do.</p><p>“Emma, don’t —” Neal tries to protest too, because of course he does, but Zelena shuts him up with a simple order, and the way he presses his lips together, his whole body going tense, only makes Emma step forward faster, the horror chilling her to the bone.</p><p>“Okay, deal,” she says, ignoring Regina behind her, ignoring Neal shaking his head. She looks at Gold instead, and the relief on his face makes her feel a little less alone in her selfishness. “You get my magic, I get his heart.”</p><p>It’s over weirdly fast.</p><p>She doesn’t feel drained, or like there’s someone sucking a part of her out, just — lighter. Like she got a cold shower and in the blink of an eye she ended up with half her weight on her legs.</p><p>She avoids dwelling on it much, instead snatching Neal’s heart away from Zelena’s hand, pulling it to her chest and trying not to <em>think</em> about the fact that she is <em>literally</em> holding — yeah, no, she might throw up.</p><p>Tuning out Zelena’s gloating, she doesn’t even <em>look</em> at her, instead pulling her hand back and reaching out to clasp her fingers around Neal’s shirt, carrying him with her as she stumbles back, just wanting to get everybody <em>home</em>, safe — she needs to have both him and Henry <em>there</em>, within reach, she needs to convince herself that everything is <em>fine</em> —</p><p>“Are you okay?” she asks, little more than a frantic whisper, her eyes running back and forth between him, Henry and Regina, Zelena — she can feel his heart beating against her palm and it’s <em>weird</em>.</p><p>“Yeah, I’m good,” he breathes out, clinging to her arm the same way she’s holding onto his shirt, looking back to Henry for a moment.</p><p>“— my little sister.”</p><p>Zelena’s voice cuts through the bubble that seemed to have appeared around them, making Emma turn sharply in her direction.</p><p>“<em>Sister</em>?” she echoes, just as Regina insists that she’s an only child.</p><p>“Cora lied to you, Regina,” Zelena says, looking down on her with a vaguely disgusted grimace on her face and not even acknowledging Emma. “I’m your sister. Half, if you want to get <em>technical</em>.”</p><p>Emma sure can see a resemblance in the megalomaniac tendencies, still — <em>what</em>?</p><p>“You know what would be <em>exciting</em>?” Zelena asks, grinning. She begins to step forward, and Regina is quick to sweep Henry behind her. Emma really regrets not having him within reach right now.</p><p>“What?” Regina asks, monotone, and probably deliberately so.</p><p>“A fight!” is the overly theatrical answer. “You and me. Finally facing my dear sister — though perhaps it would be overkill now. After all, I’ve already managed to do what you couldn’t: taking down the Savior.”</p><p>Regina snorts. “If you think that talking Emma into a crappy deal means that you can take me on in a fight, you are delusional. You don’t know who you are up against.”</p><p>“Please, stop provoking the psychopathic evil witch,” Neal mutters, a note of exasperation in his voice.</p><p>Emma would much rather go around looking for a baseball bat than advocating for peace.</p><p>“We shall see then, won’t we?” Zelena grins. She takes a look around, her face eventually twisting into a pout. “Thinking about it, though — how about we do this later? Say, on Main Street? I want <em>everyone</em> to be there to see the Evil Queen lose.”</p><p>Regina doesn’t seem particularly fazed. She shrugs, an easy smile on her face. “I don’t lose.”</p><p>Zelena chuckles, dropping her smile right after as she says: “Neither do I.”</p><p>Regina stares at her silently for a few moments. She shakes her head. “No, we end this now, here,” she states, her voice firm. “I am already tired of you.”</p><p>Zelena doesn’t need much persuasion, and Regina is quick to nudge Henry away. The kid hesitates only a moment, still shooting her an uncertain look, before all but running towards Neal and Emma. When she goes to reach for him, she’s reminded that she still has a heart in her hand. Right.</p><p>It'd be great to know how to put that back in.</p><p>“Hey, buddy, are you alright?” Neal starts asking as soon as he has his hands on him, to which Henry just nods, pressing himself between them and turning back towards Regina to watch the fight unfold.</p><p>“Rumple, do make sure to go over there and kill anyone of them who tries to intervene,” Zelena doesn’t forget to say, to which Gold clenches his jaw but moves closer, watching them like a hawk.</p><p>It proves to be a bit of a problem as soon as it starts being clear that Regina is not going to win the fight as easily as she thought. It only takes her getting knocked around a bit for Henry call out “Mom!” and attempt to step forward.</p><p>She and Neal both are quick to catch him, and Gold doesn’t do much, only shooting a warning blast at a foot of distance from them, but it’s enough for Emma’s heart to jump in her throat.</p><p>“You can’t do anything, Henry, <em>don’t</em>,” she reminds him, as it somehow finally clicks in her head that Henry must <em>remember</em>. He called Regina his mom, so somewhere in between all that chaos he got his memories back.</p><p>That’s — that’s the final nail in the coffin of that lie that they had been living for the past decade, and if somewhere in her head there was still the possibility, remote as it may be, of going back to New York and forgetting everything from Hook’s arrival forward, it shatters in the exact moment when she’s faced with the fact that Henry will always refuse to leave his home.</p><p>She doesn’t have much time to dwell on it, given their current situation, but for a moment it freezes her in place.</p><p>That’s not the last time that Henry calls out for Regina, and one of those seems to catch Zelena’s attention, enough that she turns to them with a toothy, impossibly smug grin. “Don’t worry, darling, your auntie Zelena will deal with you next.”</p><p>The threat makes Emma’s fingers clench around his arm, and it proves to be a grave mistake.</p><p>Emma has obviously seen Regina do magic before, hell, she’s been watching her do magic up until <em>now</em>, but it was always — dark. Imposing, and powerful, but not quite as much as what surrounds her as she drags herself back up on her feet, her face distorted by a protective fury that Emma can easily understand.</p><p>It turns out that the Wicked Witch of the West is no match for the Evil Queen doing light magic.</p><p>(Emma’s head hurts a little trying to wrap itself around that mess, but that’s not news.)</p><p>Neal dives for the dagger as soon as it’s out of Zelena’s hands, Henry runs to Regina for a hug at the first opportunity, and Emma is left standing there, dumbly staring at the picture before her, at the evil witch defeated, powerless and on the ground, at Regina’s triumphant smile as she holds Henry to her chest, and — there’s a little voice inside of her, pushing aside whatever relief she feels at all this being finally over, that can’t help wondering what kind of Savior she <em>is</em>, if she only stood aside while someone else saved the day.</p><p>She just watched, and now she’s <em>still</em> watching, standing still with a heart in her — oh. Right.</p><p>Her eyes move to Neal, who is currently busy fussing over his father. Gold is holding his dagger tight in his hand, looking a little worse for the wear but relieved, cupping Neal’s cheek with his free hand and whispering something to him.</p><p>Emma isn’t exactly enthusiastic about walking in on their conversation, but — it <em>is</em> kind of urgent. And she’d rather stop thinking for a minute.</p><p>“Uh, hey,” she says, awkwardly, making both of them turn around. She holds up the heart, grimacing a little. “This is yours, so — maybe you should —” she trials off, glancing at Gold in the hopes that he’ll step in to help.</p><p>Neal looks a little dumbstruck, like he had forgotten about it for a minute – she isn’t sure <em>how</em> he could have, it must be the weirdest feeling and she isn’t at all in a rush to ever experience it –, but it doesn’t take him long to come up with a grin.</p><p>“Well, you actually stole that about a decade ago, so.”</p><p>She blinks at him, in the few seconds that it takes for her to register what he just said.</p><p>“You —” She’d like to be annoyed, but she can’t help smiling too, shaking her head and feeling her chest burst with affection and relief, because, god, this was a close one, she could have <em>lost</em> this — “You are an idiot,” she completes.</p><p>He’s <em>her</em> idiot, and she loves him to death.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>So, with Emma’s limited POV and me not rewriting everything there might be a few things I should clarify.<br/>
- Rumple being resurrected without Neal around wasn’t Belle’s doing, because I don’t want her to die: she stopped before opening the vault, so Zelena got some poor bastard to open the vault through deception (I know, a stretch, concede me the poetic licence LOL) and she leveraged Belle’s life to get the dagger from Rumple. Basically everybody lives because I say so.<br/>
- Since Neal wasn’t there to think to send the potion to Hook, I imagine Rumple would drink it, so that’s why he remembers.<br/>
- The reason Zelena kidnapped Henry is that she got worried about Snow cutting her off. She decided to get rid of Emma’s magic, being that the biggest threat against her in case she needed (which at that point seemed likely) to take the baby by force.<br/>
- The stand-off that Emma is faced with at the beginning of the last section was the result of Zelena figuring that killing Rumple’s son would be a good way to get him on board with her time traveling plan. Seeing Neal threatened, Rumple attempts to step in, which leads to Zelena ordering him not to move, so by the time reinforcements arrive Henry is free to move around without Rumple stopping him.<br/>
- Henry remembers either because seeing flying monkeys and being teleported around was enough to jog his memory or because Zelena got annoyed by his confused questions and just gave him the potion LOL (which if I’m not mistaken she stole from Emma and Regina when they tried to make it, shortly after Emma arrived in Storybrooke), whichever you prefer.<br/>
<br/>
Unrelated PS: Part of the dialogue between Zelena and Regina was taken from 3x16. <strike>A moment of silence for poor me who had to rewatch a Zelena scene waaay too many times to write this.</strike></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Epilogue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>And here’s the epilogue, at long last! This time I am not particularly late, yay for me XD Aaaanyway, this wraps up Emma and Neal’s relationship, basically: the curse has been broken, Zelena is defeated, they just have to figure out where they stand, so, conversations about feelings ensue.<br/>
Thank you all for getting to this point and for the feedback, it’s always heart-warming to know that there are people out there enjoying what I write &lt;3 I hope you will enjoy this too!<br/>
<strike>Also I might or might not be planning a sequel that’s more of an Emma character study than anything else, but ssssshh, I only have an outline for now.</strike></p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Almost as soon as they arrived in New York, fully convinced of having a decade of marriage and parenting and little more left with them after the fire that took their home, they bought a pair of rings.</p>
<p>Actually, that was Neal: Emma never really much cared for those, she’d take hers off whenever she had to work, especially since there were more than a few fake dates involved, and she was always fonder of her crappy, stolen keychain.</p>
<p>Still, when he came home with two brand new rings, getting down on one knee and making her chuckle throughout his ridiculous speech, she liked the feeling of having that official looking reminder of their family right on her finger, like every other couple.</p>
<p>(It made her think of two kids, sitting in a stolen car and planning to flee to Tallahassee, musing: “Can you imagine? We are going to be respectable people!”)</p>
<p>When in Storybrooke they decided to keep the rings on, for Henry’s sake, Emma didn’t lose her habit of sliding hers off for work, even if work was staying at the station with her father, or trying to guess what an evil witch would be up to next. There was always something calming about sitting in the car at the end of a long day and putting it back on right before going home, like something was sliding back into place.</p>
<p>At the end of a <em>very</em> long day, if a triumphant one, she now still has the ring in her pocket. She plays with it, watching as Neal gathers his stuff so that he can move into his dad’s house, since they don’t have an amnesiac kid whose feelings they need to protect anymore, so why would they stay all crammed in the loft, right? Why would they still play pretend?</p>
<p>(It wasn’t pretend at all.)</p>
<p>“I went to Tallahassee, you know?” is somehow the first thing that she thinks to say.</p>
<p>If her intent was catching his attention, it undoubtedly worked: his head shoots up, and he just stares at her with wide eyes. “You did?”</p>
<p>She shrugs. “Yeah — I figured —” <em>I figured you might still come</em>. “I don’t know.”</p>
<p>He nods, a small smile twisting his lips. “What was it like?”</p>
<p>They have shared memories of living there, but maybe he figures those weren’t accurate. Maybe he just wants to know if it was different alone.</p>
<p>(It was.)</p>
<p>“Not that great.” She takes a breath. “Kind of lonely.”</p>
<p>The guilt appears in record time on his face. “I’m sorry,” he says, quietly, and she’s heard it before, she <em>knows</em> he’s sorry, but — it feels like another decade has passed, so maybe she just needed to hear it again.</p>
<p>She didn’t know that it would be enough of a push until she starts speaking, though.</p>
<p>“You know, I — I used to think about us,” she says, hesitating only a moment, as she meets his eyes. She never admitted to any of this, to anyone. “I used to imagine what our lives could have been like together. How happy we could have been, how it would have been like to have you there with me — sometimes I even thought about how much better, or — or worse it would have been if you hadn’t left me because you <em>chose</em> to.”</p>
<p>She isn’t sure if he stays silent because he doesn’t know what to say or because he somehow knows that if she were interrupted she would never be able to pick this up again, but even as she falls silent for a moment, trying to keep her voice steady, he just waits, only sitting down on the couch, as if to highlight that she has his full attention.</p>
<p>She soon joins him, at a safe enough distance.</p>
<p>“When I remembered,” she says, slowly, unsure of how to explain it. “It was like — I felt like you left me again. Like you took it all away for a second time.”</p>
<p>She went from the certainty that he’d never leave her to the <em>memory</em> of him doing it, so fast that it gave her whiplash.</p>
<p>He presses his lips together, nodding, his face saying that he understands. She wonders if it felt like that for him too, if the last year somehow doubled the guilt.</p>
<p>“I was so mad,” she admits, letting out a low chuckle. She isn’t sure where it came from. “I — I wasn’t even sure if this last year — if it was <em>us</em>, or if it was all fake.” She takes a deep breath. “I think I realize now that it doesn’t really matter. I don’t love you because of those memories, I loved you before, I just — I don’t know.”</p>
<p>He's staring at her with huge eyes, like he can’t quite believe his ears, and it makes her smile.</p>
<p>“You know me,” she shrugs. “Maybe I was just looking for an excuse to run.”</p>
<p><em>That’s how you know that you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, you just miss it</em>.</p>
<p>(Funnily enough, it didn’t even take any successful running to realize where she wanted to be, not this time.)</p>
<p>“You don’t need an excuse,” he’s quick to say. “If you want to break it all off —”</p>
<p>“I don’t, though.” It comes out so naturally that she can’t help feeling relieved. “I am not saying that we can just go back to the way it was before — before we remembered, but —” Her hand closes around her ring, and she smiles a little, taking it out for him to see. “I don’t want to throw these away either,” she says, softly.</p>
<p>At least the giant, delighted smile on his face doesn’t leave much room for doubt on whether he is on board with this or not.</p>
<p>“So —” She clears her throat, handing the ring out to him. “Will you —” What exactly is the word for this situation? “— date me?”</p>
<p>That’s so spectacularly awkward.</p>
<p>She can <em>tell</em> that he’s trying not to laugh, and to his credit he does manage to utter a ‘yeah’, and his grin could easily be mistaken for happiness, yet —</p>
<p>She snorts. “Yeah, okay, that was terrible.”</p>
<p>“A little bit,” he admits, his grin widening. “But I’ll take it.”</p>
<p>“How graceful of you,” she teases, feeling all too light to even be properly embarrassed.</p>
<p>Silence falls for a few moments, his smile dropping a little as he looks down. “So —” he says, playing with his own ring. “Does this mean that I get to keep mine on?”</p>
<p>She supposes that it would be weird to see him without it.</p>
<p>“Why not?” she shrugs. “It’s not like we have done literally anything else in the proper order.”</p>
<p>That makes him laugh. “Yeah, good point.”</p>
<p>It all feels so comfortable, so <em>right</em>, that it’s surprisingly easy not to be scared.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This story is part of the <a href="https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject">LLF Comment Project</a>, which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates comments, including:
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